Jazz legend Hancock in Australia for concert series

Jazz great Herbie Hancock has endured for more than 40 years, always experimenting, crossing over at times into funk and pop, winning multiple Grammy awards and even an Oscar. He took time out from his busy concert schedule in Sydney on the weekend to speak with the ABC.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN: Of course, one of the more common stereotypes of drug use is associated with the music industry, particularly the early decades of jazz. It wasn't just about creative experimentation, it was also about poverty and pain and racism. Jazz great Herbie Hancock saw it all, but perhaps was lucky that the worst of it was tapering off as he arrived on the scene in the early '60s. Hancock had a meteoric rise just as he hit his 20s, simultaneously recording a hit with Watermelon Man and being embraced by one of the greatest of them all, Miles Davis, and becoming part of what was known as the "Second Great Quintet". Hancock has flourished for more than 40 years, always experimenting, crossing over at times into funk and even pop, winning multiple Grammy Awards and an Oscar. Herbie Hancock is here for a series of concerts, and I spoke with him in Sydney at the weekend.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Herbie Hancock, I've read a lot of your interviews going back almost 20 years and there wasn't one that I could find where you weren't asked about Miles Davis. Yet you only played together for about five years, and you're always generous with your answers. That must have been such a rich period for you for someone so young?

HERBIE HANCOCK, JAZZ PIANIST: When I first joined Miles' band, I had no idea that I had a particular identity that I could say, "Herbie Hancock's identity on the piano." But by the time I left Miles' band, I had something that I could kind of call my own. But that wasn't all I got out of Miles. I really consider him to be my mentor. Miles told us that he paid us to search for new things, to explore territory, to explore new territory, not to rest on your laurels, not to just stay in the comfort zone.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You tell a wonderful story from 1963 when Davis first recruited what became known as the "Second Great Quintet" and set you all up in his basement to play together for the first time and he found an excuse to leave you alone for three days. What was he up to?

HERBIE HANCOCK: I didn't find out until the 1990s that Miles was upstairs on his second floor listening to us through the intercom and I thought, "Why was he doing that?" I don't even remember who told me about this, you know. But they said that Miles knew that if he were there that we would be too nervous to really let loose and so he was upstairs leaving us free to play.

KERRY O'BRIEN: In the book 'Miles Beyond' you're quoted talking about your embarrassment when you once played a completely wrong chord in the middle of a Miles Davis solo and you found his response remarkable.

HERBIE HANCOCK: It really blew my mind. I mean, if you can imagine, it was one of those nights where everything was in sync. It was one of those nights when the band was really on. I think we were in Stuttgart, Germany. And the band was really kicking. The energy was high and the level of creativity was amazing. And everything was soaring and it was just building and building and building. And the audience was right there with us. You could tell. They were practically on their feet. During the middle of one of the songs for this particular set, Miles is playing his solo and building it solo, building it solo and when it reached a peak I hit this chord that was totally wrong. It was so wrong, so wrong. It felt like the music was melting. And so Miles just took a breath and he played some notes that made my chord right. Somehow he found some notes that made my, the chord that I played fit in that moment. And I couldn't play anything for several minutes. I was just, like I'm looking up at the ceiling now. How did he do this? What kind of sorcery is this?

KERRY O'BRIEN: There's a story of the '91 Montreux Jazz Festival, just two months before Davis died, when he performed some of his early work with his musical soul brother Gill Evans. He was fragile and playing below his best and you're quoted as saying you just cried when you saw the video that even Miles' worst playing sounds better than everyone else's best playing. That's a remarkable compliment, coming from you.

HERBIE HANCOCK: Miles was an amazing musician. His sense of just time and groove was uncanny and his use of space was phenomenal. The way he just seemed to automatically construct an improvised solo was like sculpture. It was amazing. You know what, most musicians would give their right arm to be able to play Miles' mistakes. He was that good.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You performed and acted in the powerful 1986 jazz film Round Midnight and picked up an Oscar for writing the original music score, the story of a deeply afflicted and tragic genius of jazz, in this case a saxophonist. How often have you seen variations of that story in real life?

HERBIE HANCOCK: In many ways things have gotten so much better, but there have been many musicians in the past that have been victims of racism, of just poverty and the difficulty of seeing the results of this great music that they're creating kind of disappear in the air.

KERRY O'BRIEN: What I'm also talking about, though, is those musicians who seemed to carry such pain, who had such trouble in their lives, who had such unstable lives. In Round Midnight the ailing saxophonist Dale Turner says, "My life is music, my love is music, 24 hours a day". His world off the stage seemed to be one of tenements and bleak hotel rooms with drug dealers scuttling down the halls and alleys. That world never reached out to you?

HERBIE HANCOCK: Well, a lot of that happened before I really came on the scene. I got kind of on the tail end of a lot of that. When heroin, for example, was so prevalent in the jazz scene, that happened primarily before I got to New York, which was the early '60s.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Going back to that quote in the movie, you've made a point that that isn't you, that you see yourself first as a human being, and Buddhism is a part of that for you, isn't it?

HERBIE HANCOCK: I've been practising Buddhism now for about 35 years and for me it provides a support and an expansion of my basic philosophy of life. It's not just centring myself, it's not just for focus. Buddhism is more about respecting the fact that every human being has a great beauty and a great importance, even if they don't realise it, and that each of us has something that we bring to the table of life that only we as individuals can bring, and that's why we exist on the planet, because we have something that we bring to it.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You've had so many different creative phases in your life, you've taken on so many forms that you've had to withstand some sometimes trenchant criticism from some jazz purists. But that doesn't seem to have particularly bothered you. Why?

HERBIE HANCOCK: Well, they're not the ones playing the piano. They're not the ones creating the music. They're not the person with the attitude and perhaps the vision. For me, and again this was something that was encouraged by Miles Davis, I have to be true to myself. That's the most important thing. That's what I encourage with other musicians and younger musicians who ask me questions from time to time about what kind of tips, what kind of advice can you give me? I always say, be sincere, play from your heart. Play what you feel, find the directions that you really want to be involved with and do that.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Herbie Hancock, thanks very much for talking with us.

HERBIE HANCOCK: Thank you.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Jazz great, Herbie Hancock, 67 years young. He's already played Brisbane, does Sydney tonight and tomorrow, followed by Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and the Melbourne Jazz Festival. That's it for tonight. Stay tuned for Part One of that special edition of 'Australian' Story' with Alexander Downer. We'll be back at the same time tomorrow. Until then, goodnight.